35 thoughts on “How do you discipline your child when they have misbehaved?”

I yell but wish I didn’t. Usually time out. Spanking as a last resort. I watched and episode of 17 and pregnant again with the Duggar family and watched how Mom very quietly disciplined one of the younger daughters. I’m trying to do that more but it’s not easy. I’ve already taught my younger 2 yelling. They don’t understand it’s not ok to yell at Mommy and Daddy. It shouldn’t be ok for me to yell either, though.

My oldest (6) is very verbal, I only have to raise my voice and he gets right on it.
My middle (3) is very physical so I usually have to pop him on the butt to get results.
The youngest (1) … I don’t know yet. LOL He’s too young.

I dod tend to yell more that I like at all of them, but I’m working on that.

I yell alot and I hate it! I sometimes spank (I have 4 kids) but spanking usually gets me nowhere fast. I have tried time outs and all kinds of stuff. I am really at a loss. They are getting older and my husband is away, I feel like they are beginning to overtake me. I am very overwhelmed sometimes. I don’t know what to do!!

I’m overwhelmed too and feel they are overtaking me. (I have 3 children ages 7, 6 and 5). I’m also at a loss at what to do. I’ve tried yelling, being calm, ignoring the bad behavior and rewarding for being good, time-outs, charts and even family counceling-never spanked. Has anyone out there ever try the child displine called The Total Transformation? Just wondering if it works to actually change a child’s behavior? I do like the “Super-Nanny” technique, but find it is very difficult to stick with day to day. I find most parents are just too overwhelmed these days. How can we help our children appreciate what they have and not expect more and more?

My children ate 7 11 and 15
I dont spank tje 15 year old nut if the younger two despite alk warnings .i would take them to their room talk about why theyneed ti be spanjked.tjhen fen for lucy who is 7 i would take her skirtt lower het pantirs and give her 7 smacks on her bum. As jack is 11 he take hus own jeans down and i would give him 5 sharp spanks on his underweat .then take tje pants down for z5 hard. Spanks .
Then it is over we cuddle and they say say sorry
.this migjht happen 1 a month or le?

My boyfriend has a 11 year old girl. She can be very demanding, sometimes needy “I think because she’s an only child”. She gets mouthy with me quite frequently, but she also talks aggressively most other times, so I can’t tell when she is being mouthy or talking agressively. Most times I talk firmly and not allow goodies when she expects them, other times I try to reason with her as she is maturing. But when she doesn’t listen or learn her lesson, I have to tell her daddy to get results. She thinks I tell him everything she does wrong, or about all our misunderstandings, but, I don’t!

Today, I yelled at her and I think I did it before. Is there a better way to discapline her, since her father allows me to do. I don’t like yelling at her.

My issue is, that I yelled at her pretty bad and I have once before and it was because of a possible missunderstanding. But, when she is talking back or aggressive, is it ok to yell at her or is there a better way to talk to her?

The way I discipline my children depends on their age and issue. I set very specific boundaries and then I make sure I follow through. For example, if my son has chores to do afterschool but “forgets” to do them, he receives extra chores. He can’t do anything fun until the chores are done. I don’t have to yell or get mad, I just keep adding more chores. At 11 years old, he now rarely forgets to do his chores.

I have high expectations about respect, tone of voice and attitude. There is one “do over” if a question or comment is made with a disrespectful tone and if it isn’t done with respect there are consequences. Usually they don’t get what they are asking for no matter what…..even if I would have said yes if the tone was joyful. I want them to understand that we respect each other above all else.

I always take age into consideration and make a decision if there needs to be more training or communication instead of consequences. Consistancy and follow through are key!!! Parenting is a lot of work but the rewards are worth the time and energy. I love being around my kids. There ages are 11, 9 and 6.

There are some great books out there that I’ve been reading lately. Screamfree Parenting and Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids (or Children). They are really about a different parenting paradigm. It is really hard to do things differently and stay calm, but I am trying. It’s about working to meet everyone’s needs, not just the parent’s or just the child’s. It’s about respect and cooperation and not just trying to externally force them to behave the way we want them to, but to teach them responsibility for their actions. They’re books worth checking out.

The most important part of it is to talk with the kids properly and work out the situation together. Most of the time I give them extra jobs or ground them from something they want to do. I think putting my kids to work when they’ve done something wrong teaches them proper discipline and restraint, time outs and grounding just don’t cut it when they get older.
For some things though I think you just need to spank them. Certainly not often, but sometimes there’s no other way even if it is politically incorrect these days. For example, when I found out my daughter was bullying another girl I gave her the belting of her life and it nipped that bullying phase right in the bud like nothing else could.

My son is a little younger but there are times when he certainly gets into things that he shouldn’t. I just wrote on my blog about our frustrations with the water cooler actually!
I try not to yell because I don’t want him to listen to me out of fear. It’s usually a LOT of repetition. And even more patience. Even though he’s onle 19 months, I try to explain to him why he can’t do certain things. “You can’t run off the grass cuz you’ll get hurt and mommy loves you and doesn’t want to you to get hurt.”
Biggest thing I’ve learned: pick your battles. If he’s not hurting himself or anyone else then it’s not a big deal. For example: he’s currently taking the VHS movies out of their cases. It’s not hurting anyone and in a little while he can hel pme put them back in the case.

In the warm portion of the year, my girls are too tired to misbehave (there’s always a lot of work to do around here and i make them do their share). Winter…oooohhhh! Sometimes a look does the job. At times i do yell then guilt trip over it later. If we’re out in public then we’ll go home and the guilty party will have a misserable night (i use the cold-shoulder until they get the point), then they’ll hear it from my husband when they fess up to him about what they’ve done. What really works is finding what they like and taking that away. For my oldest, that’s video games and spend the night trips. On the youngest, just knowing that Mama is mad at her (and won’t sit on the sofa hugging on her while she screams) does the job. At first they get louder and meaner but it does break them. Then it’s time for a little talk and some snuggling. Works like a charm!

I spank my children. I have tried corner time, putting them in theyr room and even talking to then in a firm voice, but they just don’t listen or mehave. After they were given a spanking they are well behaved.

My kids are 10 and my husband and I have never had to spank them or hit them in any way. Part of that may be luck but I think part of that is following through with consequences. Now I do yell from time to time but as far as discipline goes, we’ve always warned them what the consequence will be for an action and then followed through. These days consequences are things like no tv or no video games, etc., for a certain period of time, or not going to a friend’s house, etc. My husband and I; however, were both spanked/hit as children. Neither of us resent our parents in any way and we both know they love us like crazy and would do anything for us. They did the best they could with us and we’re just fine, no issues or anything, but for us, we just never felt the need to spank our kids and fortunately our children have responded well to our form of discipline.

We mostly just talk quietly about things, and if we do time out it’s not a punishment but more something where we all need to regroup. Usually if they do something, we have a discussion about how to make it right, and then they make it right, like if they damaged something they have to do the work to fix it. Write on a wall=clean the wall. But sometimes if the problem is that they’re just being rude or wild, I do send them to their rooms for an hour or so (our kids are not toddlers but school age.) There are certain things that we always spank for.
I see a lot of families where there is a lot of punishment going on but we hardly ever end up punishing, I think because the boundaries are so clear and we are really consisent. If you know that taking a dollar out of Mommy’s purse is going to get you a spanking (as well as a discussion of course), it’s easy to make yourself not take it.

Our childs are so different. Our son who is with 10y the oldest is a very sensible child most of the time its enough to explain him what we want and why and then he do the right. All in his life he misbehave rarly. He got only a handfull spankings in his life the last one for 2 years but most of the time it was enough to send him in his room for an hour (or less depends on age) or give him a littel chore to do explain what was wrong etc.
Our middel child she is 7 act and react in a completely other way. She is very stron willed and she like to do dangerous things and if we forbid some she like to do it more. She dont react at punihment like time out or extra chores if she earned a single smack on her backsite she smirk to do and dident stop with her behavior. The only one what work for her is “a trip” over mum or dads knee. So she got spanked often. Our youngest turned 4 in two month she is half/half to time. Most of the time it is enough to scold with her sometimes she earned a time out or no desert or some like this but she also need a spanking from time to time.

mostly i reason mith my little boy but i have recently started yelling and i feel quilty afterward because i think he will be scared of me. i realy dont like yelling at him because its like i scare him. my last resort is spanking. and sometimes i wonder, am i gonna be like my mother? my boy is 27months.

I feel so ashamed about it but I yelled at my autistic son and called him a retard on 3 separate occasions last week. He is nonverbal and vacant so I thought nothing was getting through to him. Until today I see him scrutinizing a book and snarling retard retard retard at it. I am so sad for inflicting that. Of course I gave him lots of hugs and encouragement and now I just check out and leave the room. This technique won’t last long either bc I can’t leave him without supervision for long but I am done with the name calling

I have 2 daugthers who are complete opposites, ages 12 and 8. The 12 year old is super neat and orderly, the 8 year old can be a real slob. We have never spanked (maybe 4 times in their lives) really but used time out when they were younger. They seem too old for that now, and our biggest challenges were getting them to do chores without hounding them. So I took away their allowance and started paying them quarters to to tasks around the house. I know I’m cheap but it is then affordable if they go nuts. Anyway, our 8 year old came is a changed girl. She wants money so without asking her she came home yesterday and unpacked her lunch bag, moved and stacked 2 wagon loads of wood (all by herself), emptied the dishwasher, organized the shoes and then came to me wanting more chores to do! We used to call her the princess because she didn’t want to help. So this seesm to be working very well for us now. The burden can now be shared and no one has to beg them to help. And if they decide not to help in the future, they will have no money to spend on their shopping trips.

Past tense: DD is 26 now. When very small, up to 3, just held her tight and with stern voice tell her she did something wrong, after that we would send her to her room, or if somewhere else make her stand against a wall until we said time out was over. We did this until she was about 9. After that till about 14, take away television time as punishment.

Depends. I am yelling @ my kids 80% of the day..I’ve tried it all, time outs, reasoning, peace place, corner, spanking, yelling, popping on hands, etc. My kids don’t respect me at all. So dicipline is very hard.. My eldest acts like i’m going to kill her if i threaten a spanking, my little ones Bah, nothing phases them short of a threaten of the belt…

Some days I have all the energy in the world but there are those days where they won’t take a nap and they’re super grouchy … I literally don’t know how to deal with them. I get so angry and don’t know how I can relate… Every mom I know acts like their kids do NO WRONG! My kids r actually alot better than most!! But I just need some advice on what to do when I’m at my end and I still have another 7 hours !!!

I have a nephew who does not listen to anyone in the family. He is an out right disrespectful little brat. I can’t describe how much he makes me dislike him. I love him as family, but no as a person. He screams over not getting his way, he never listens to anyone who punishes him (sends him to his room, put in time out, spankings from dad etc.), and he has already did some harm to his parents’ animals (he crushed one of their pet fishes with my flat iron). I can honestly say that he needs more discipline, but it’s not my place to tell his mom and dad that I don’t like being and aunt and the novelty wore off. I wish that he behaved if I were his mother but no one even notices because everyone is either on Facebook or doesn’t care. Yelling, spankings, slaps on hand and corner does not phase him. He even told me to shut up and stop talking. My grandmother does not like disrespectful children, so if she knew about my nephew, she would have put his ass in check. But his parents don’t seem to actually care about how the way he treats his elders so what makes me mad is that they don’t care and my nephew’s behavior is going to put a lot of dents in his future if his behavior continues.

I feel absolutely horrible for this, but I spanked my child with a wooden spoon for the first time. I feel so terrible about it, but my child doesn’t respond to me spanking with my hand (it doesn’t effect at all) and trying to reason and talk with my kid, (conversations, time outs, etc) have not worked. The big problem is napping, they refuse to go to sleep and keeps messing around and half way hanging out of bed. Every day my child messes around in bed for 2-3 hours and most of the time will not go to sleep unless punished. Many are probably going to look at me as abusive and horrible, but I really do love my child, I would give everything for them, even my own life, but they just won’t listen. I hate this, I feel so ashamed, but now it is the only thing that seems to have worked (my child is asleep now after it). As a kid I was spanked with an open hand only twice, but my mother used to give me hard core guilt trips. My child and I are very close and have a great bond, but napping problems (which leads to other behavior problems) is absolutely draining me physically and emotionally. I don’t really know what to ask here, but I want to thank those who took the time to read this, I just needed to get these thoughts out.

I would not feel bad for the spanking you gave your child. The wooden spoon is a very common spanking implement and many of us have felt it’s sting when younger. From what you say, your child was being naughty and a spanking for naughtiness is just plain old fashioned good parenting in my opinion. Plus, it worke. So in the end your child is telling you that what they really needed was that spanking. Just be consistent and God Bless!

I used to just spank my boys’ bare bottoms but then after a happy accident I discovered that it works so much better giving them little spankings between the legs. Sometimes I do feel bad because it seems really unorthodox but their behavior has improved so much! It’s worked so well! I don’t even need to do it that often. Just a few good swats is all it takes.

I never yell or humiliate them but I do spank their bare bottoms with my hand when needed. There is nothing like a spanked bottom for changing bad behavior. Having the child over your lap with pants down whilst getting their hinnie reddened really shows them that they are the child with a duty to obey and you are the parent with the responsibility to make them learn right from wrong.